Talking Tickets 17 September 2021: The Hundred! Sustainability in Sports! Attendance Woes! The Secondary Market! And, More!
Number 102
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Welcome to this week’s letter from the San Francisco Bay Area! I’ve never been until Wednesday.
It is a good place to hang out and spend the day.
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To the Tickets!
1. The Hundred was a pretty great success in year one!
Big Ideas:
A big moment for women’s sports as this was the first women’s final to take place at the home of cricket.
Market research can teach you how to evolve.
Change isn’t easy, but it can be done.
My neighbor, Tom, told me that after I got through reading all of my soccer books I should look at cricket because it is a sport that is good for hanging out with your friends, having drinks.
Count me in!
Several folks drew my attention to the launch of The Hundred and the success they’ve had this year:
Selling over 500,000 tickets while bringing in 19% of the audience in kids and 55% from folks new to cricket says a lot!
2.4 million people watched the final on the BBC!
To me, this highlights a few great places to focus:
First, the success of a new take on a sport that has been struggling to attract and retain a new audience.
Second, the continuing growth of women’s professional sports.
Third, the opportunities that paying attention to the world around you can create as we work through the pandemic.
Let me run down each of these quickly so we can focus on getting to the next level.
To begin with, change is difficult.
Again, I’ve talked about this a number of times but in the before times I was giving a lot of talks about change and the key takeaways were:
Change is constant.
You don’t need courage to change because change is coming whether you like it or not.
You have to make a choice between embracing change or allowing it to run over you.
In looking at The Hundred, you can see the marks of good market research because an audience showed up that was new to cricket. The games attracted kids. And, it sold tickets straight away.
This was achieved by speeding up the game, not being wed to traditions that no longer mattered, and a willingness to fail.
Second, this continues to show the strength and growth of women’s professional sports.
Over the last few months, I’ve highlighted the WNBA, the AFLW, NWSL’s ratings, and more.
I’m on the record once again saying that women’s sports were really just missing out on marketing focus.
Having the 2.4 million folks tune in to watch the finals of the men’s and women’s cricket on the BBC is a pretty clear indication that when provided with the opportunity to check out women’s sports, people are more likely to give it a shot than the conventional wisdom might lead y’all to believe.
I’m not saying this is true in every situation, but I am saying that if you do your research you often find out some interesting things about people.
This brings me to the final point here and that is that this shows us once again that we aren’t limited in our ability to create opportunities…we are often limited in our will to go out and create them.
The T20 was the third form of cricket and when it launched, folks thought it was the end times. Now we have The Hundred, the fourth form.
People wouldn’t pay real money for streaming performances of the arts?! Wrong!
Or, as I said at INTIX once when someone said we are limited in the number of ways we can generate revenue…you are wrong if you think that.
If we only take one lesson from the pandemic, it should be that we can’t take anything for granted and that there is always some new way to reach and serve an audience.
That’s what The Hundred is all about…being willing to try something new, even when you aren’t guaranteed success.
2. Sustainability and sports come to the forefront with this weekend’s Spurs v. Chelsea match:
Big Ideas:
Net Zero and carbon-neutral soccer have been on my radar for months now.
There are big business opportunities here.
Both clubs have worked to advance a positive environmental impact.
This is a pretty cool story because this environmental stuff is right up my alley:
I drive an electric car like any good tree hugger.
I’ve lived in a lot of cities that have been at the forefront of the impact of pattern changes in the climate like NYC, DC, Seattle, and Ft. Lauderdale.
This is good for the earth, but also good business.
I first came upon the idea of making soccer environmentally sustainable when I listened to the “Football Weekly” crew talk about Forest Green Rovers a few months back. I went so far as to buy a mug and get the boy a top made from recycled materials to show our support. (Of course, the emissions from shipping the shirt to the US likely offset the positive benefit.)
As a Spurs supporter, I like the idea of the team getting all of this positive press and attention for efforts to create a more environmentally friendly soccer experience. And, in looking at the 2019 rankings of teams in the EPL, both Chelsea and Tottenham do a pretty decent job working towards being environmentally conscious in their efforts.
Chelsea has done a few small, but meaningful things:
Carbon offsets
Heat recapture
Electric charging stations
I could go on.
Tottenham has:
Used mostly recycled material in its new stadium.
Implemented biodegradable bags.
But let’s move past this stuff to the opportunities that being on the cutting edge of technology creates for clubs and folks in the world of tickets. Because being environmentally conscious has been shown to pay off for businesses as well.
First, with Forest Green Rovers they’ve found that focusing on their environmental mission has made them more creative with F&B, building, merchandise, and other aspects of the fan experience.
This has grown the clubs’ global brand, made them more profitable, and sustainable.
Second, in a lot of instances, the focus on environmental sustainability leads to improved efficiency, driving down costs.
Think about the amount of additional money you keep if your bars, food service, or some other aspect is more effective.
Finally, you can create new demand as an overlap.
How many folks that may not be football fans are potentially taking a flyer on going to a Rovers, Spurs, or Chelsea match because they want to see how some of the environmental technologies are used?
I can only speak for myself, but I’m curious to see the Rovers’ stadium because when Eco Park is completed, it will be built from wood! And, the Spurs stadium is the most technologically advanced and greenest stadium…plus the beers fill from the bottom!
Again, this highlights a way to look at your situation from different angles, creating opportunities!
While I just think the environmental impact aspect of the story is cool, I’d be kidding with you if I couldn’t also see the financial impacts from doing the right thing.
Big Ideas:
To say you’ve tried everything is wrong. There are no limits to creativity. It is a muscle you can use.
We are still in a pandemic. And, the data shows that folks are limiting some of their interactions with the outside world.
Like we talked about last week, the marketing mix needs to be looked at.
Ticket sales are a struggle in a lot of places…yeah, I can see that.
I had a chat with a few brokers this week and they told me that as I predicted, things started hot and have started to slow down a bit lately. A couple of guys mentioned to me that they hadn’t really been seeing any days with losses, but now they’ve seen a few over the last few weeks…but that they are still up overall for the year.
I bring that up because the secondary market is likely the best indicator we have for the health of the market, at least in the States, because the brokers take a risk and buy into so many shows, games, and events that just looking at primary sales data or primary tickets on-sale can give you a skewed view of the market.
But the attendance issue isn’t just an American challenge. A mate of mine went to a Spurs Europa Conference match at The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and got hospitality tickets for less than $100 from the box office.
Pep Guardiola is pleading for more fans at City’s game this weekend.
If City is struggling, it just goes to show that winning alone doesn’t solve things.
This situation was festering before the pandemic, but now we are dealing with a different situation because the pandemic has laid bare a lot of underlying challenges, meaning that this entire situation really highlights the need to get back to the basics of marketing strategy beginning with the humble tool: research.
Where do we begin with research?
Taking a step back and recognizing that you don’t know anything about what your customer wants until you actually go out and talk with them.
I had someone call me on Thursday about pricing and I said these magic words, “We need to begin with research, or else we really are pulling stuff out of our bum.”
How do you begin?
Start with ethnography!
What’s that $5 word mean?
It really means watching how people actually watch what is going on.
An example, when I walk around ballparks or arenas, I watch how people are hanging out or engaging with the product…that’s ethnography.
Watch the buying process at the box office.
What happens when there is a problem?
What happens when something great happens?
From there, you should start out by talking with people, you want good and bad examples. Advocates and people that will never go to your shows.
You want a clear picture of what is good and bad about the experience.
After these two things, you can start to develop some hypotheses for what you should be looking for.
Then, you can create some focus groups to ask a few questions and listen to the answers that come out when groups of folks get together to talk.
After this, you’ll have a pretty clear suggestion of how to create large-scale research in the form of surveys.
Why?
Patterns will emerge. Patterns always emerge.
I’ve been involved in these things from my time in nightclubs to the presidential election I worked on, and into sports and tickets. The key is that you always learn something interesting when you start really listening to folks.
The final step, do some sort of quantitative research in the form of a survey.
These things can happen pretty cheaply now, even on your cell phones. And, the number of responses you need isn’t typically as large as you might think they will be. As an example, to get a representative sample of the DC Metro area, you need to survey less than 400 people.
I priced out a decent research project for a company recently because the CEO asked about the costs of doing something meaningful and you can do a significant survey for $15-20,000.
I’m harping on this because I can tell by the marketing messages, the service levels, and some of the promotions going on that folks aren’t doing the right kinds of research.
They might be looking at sales data, but they aren’t talking with the market about the value, the perception, or the things the customer needs.
And, that’s costing folks money.
The thing to keep in mind here is that people will continue to get together…we’ve been doing that for as long as we’ve been walking upright. But what we do know is that what people like changes…and that’s especially true right now.
We might learn a lot by what people buy after the fact, but an even better way of predicting the future and driving profitability is to know what people want and to find ways to give it to them.
4. Theatre returns in the northern hemisphere:
Big Ideas:
As with sports and other events, re-opening isn’t recovery.
There is still uncertainty due to the Delta variant and that is holding some customers back.
Success will require focusing on rebuilding habits and discovering new opportunities.
Broadway is back, baby!
Also, the West End!
And, theatres all over the northern hemisphere are emerging from the shutdowns to try and recover from the pandemic.
So far, the reopening shows have had good sales. But we’ve also seen that early games, concerts, and performances have had good sales to start and slipped back after an initial pop.
Which is a reason to remember that reopening isn’t recovery, but it is a significant moment to celebrate.
In the coming months, we are going to see Broadway, the West End, and other performing arts areas recover or stumble for any number of reasons including:
Uncertainty around the delta variant.
Lots of supply from so many shows opening at once.
Unforeseen circumstances that we may not be able to predict…because ain’t that the way the whole pandemic has been?
To me, solving this challenge comes down to three areas of focus:
The fight against uncertainty and skepticism.
Rebuilding habits that have slipped away during the pandemic.
Looking for new opportunities.
Let’s run through each of these quickly.
First, fighting uncertainty and skepticism.
Like people have been saying throughout this whole period, nothing is guaranteed to be 100% safe minus going out into the woods and completely cutting yourself off from the world.
I’ve been going to a bunch of stuff lately and I do think about managing the risk before I say “yes” or “no”.
Like going to baseball games, they are outside, so I’m cool with that.
Foo Fighters at the 9:30 Club required a vaccination record and it is in DC where we are getting pretty close to herd immunity and you have to wear masks indoors…seems reasonable.
I point that out because I’m sure I’m not unusual in this regard.
So, how do we fight this stuff?
I’d begin by offering refund protection or refunds if a person doesn’t feel comfortable. Going back to the data from Booking Protect, around one-third of customers are taking up refund protection now. That’s about double what the rate was before the pandemic.
Next, I’d focus on educating folks around what your safety precautions look like.
The 9:30 Club did a great job of that leading up to the Foo Fighters concert. And, when I went to see Wilco at the Merriweather Post Pavillion, the same situation was in play.
I knew I needed to show my vaccine card, bring a mask, and what was expected of me.
Even if the fears might seem irrational to you, the key is to put yourself in the shoes of your customer.
Don’t give them a reason to say, “no”. Make it easy to say, “yes”.
Then, I’d spend a lot of time communicating.
I’ve been doing research on the topic and the level of communications from venues during the pandemic was lower than normal. In some places, non-existant.
Now that events are happening, it is key to start the communication process with folks again. And, each message should offer some value to the reader about shows, events, safety, security, and/or the path forward.
In truth, I’d mix all of them into the messages to make sure that you enticed folks to open the emails and communications, but also so it was valuable to them.
Second, focus on rebuilding habits.
Like I pointed out above, there has been a lack of consistent communication from a lot of venues throughout the pandemic.
This probably means that people have found new habits, new ways to engage with content or events, and may have changed their priorities.
Why?
Well, there was a pandemic that is still going on: so some of these things were necessary.
But, people also just discovered things about themselves and decided that they wanted to do something, learn something, change something…whatever.
The key is that you have to help build a pathway to rebuilding the habits of going to Broadway, the opera, plays, or whatever it is that you are selling folks on.
This will require research to understand what people value and need now, but that’s also an ongoing need anyway.
Finally, we build off that last point to focus on new opportunities.
Peter Drucker taught us that we need to focus on what our non-customers are doing because there are always more of them.
It is also true that Peter Drucker actually laid down the idea of Market Orientation.
The key is that like we discussed with rebuilding habits, we need to look at the world the customer populates and find out what is meaningful to them.
In doing this, we need to uncover what value looks like now. Not from our point of view, but from the point of view of the customer.
Through this focus on the customer and what they value, we can focus our attention on getting to the next level.
In my research, I’ve seen far too many organizations in sports, theatre, arts, and more that have mostly decided that the way things have always been done is totally fine. Even in the face of an environment that is completely not okay and not normal.
This means that the challenge we all must set ourselves now is to not get back to “normal” but to get to the next level in our businesses in sales, marketing, strategy, and profitability.
That’s the core of what I do in every situation, but I also know I’m often walking on a path that isn’t particularly crowded.
5. Let’s close out the week with some links from around the world:
Bill Guertin had me on his podcast to talk about selling in a post-pandemic economy: I got to share why I think marketing is so important to the sales process, the need for more strategic thinking, and a lot more.
Sportico asked me about Emma Raducanu and her branding impact: Goes without saying, if her performance continues, she can have a huge impact as a brand asset and as a cultural figure. I also got to coin the phrase: Sponsorship Unicorn.
Mark Ritson talks about restaurant pricing. And, since he taught me marketing, should listen to him talk about pricing: Set your prices right at the start. Discounts destroy your profits, your brand, and your price integrity. La la la! Where have we heard this all before?
German “superspreader” event due to poor ventilation: We are still in the middle of a pandemic and we have to keep that in mind.
Check out my links on Linktree including the podcast and more!
Welcome, Ashley, Jennifer, and Nicholas to the Booking Protect team! I’ll just remind you that around 1/3 of customers are picking up refund protection since tickets have gone on sale after lockdowns. This behavior shows that customers want peace of mind. Reach out to Cat, Cath, or Hayley and find out how you can offer refund protection to your customers.
Have you spotted Einar out in America? He’s here and that means we probably have some exciting plans in the works. Check out what Activity Stream is up to including the new email marketing tool, Activate!
Over and over I mention the power of market research to you and I’ve been doing a lot of research and will continue because it helps me understand what the market needs, what is driving behavior, and how I can continue to add value. So get the NPS worksheet I’ve put together with Eventellect and find out how you can run some simple market research in your market! Eventellect’s is an amazing 77 and what’s more important is all of the quantitative feedback they received as well. Email me to get the worksheet.